﻿OP THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



23 



THE TERM "ARMY WORM" APPLLED TO VARIOUS INSECTS. 



The name ''Army Worm" is naturally ^iven to any insect larva 

 that congregates and travels in large numbers. Thus, in parts of 

 Europe some of the owlet moth larvae and particularly that of Calo- 

 campa exoleta (Linn.) sometimes go by that name; and on the Pacific 

 coast another larva, which has not, so far as I can learn, been speci- 

 ficallj'^ determined, is often reported in the California papers by the 

 name of "Army Worm," as doing great injury to the beet crops. " The 

 Cotton-worm (Anomis xylina,* Say), is very generally known by the 

 name of ' the Cotton Army-worm,' in the South. The term as applied 

 to this species is not altogether inappropriate, as the worm frequently 

 appears in immense armies, and when moved by necessity will travel 

 over the ground 'in solid phalanx;' and so long as the word 'Cotton' is 

 attached — its ravages being strictly confined to this plant — there is 

 no danger of its being confounded with the true Army-worm. The 

 term has, furthermore, received the sanction of custom in the 

 Southern States, and of Mr. Glover in his Department Reports." The 

 Army Worm of Jos. B. Lyman, in his " Cotton Culture" (p. 29) is what 

 I have characterized as the Fall Army Worm (Rep. Ill, 109), an insect 

 closely resembling the true Army Worm in larval appearance and 

 habit, and which I shall presently have occasion to refer to again. 

 The Tent Caterpillar of the Forest (Rep. Ill, 121) is also frequently 



dubbed "Army- 

 worm," a fact which 

 is by no means sur- 

 prising since it often 

 appears in countless 

 numbers and particu- 

 larly in the more 

 southern States,where 

 it strips the oak forests 

 for hundreds of square 

 miles. In 1872 this 

 species was so numer- 

 ous around Memphis as to frequently stop the trains going 

 in and out of the city. It stripped orchards, and great 

 lanes of bare trees marked its track through the woods. 

 Finally, the " Army Worm" of the Germans is what we 

 more generally call "Snake Worm," viz., the larva of Sciara (a genus 

 of small gnats) which has the peculiar habit of traveling in large 



Tent Caterpillar of the Forest: 

 b, female moth — natural size ; c, egg, from top ;""rf,' 

 from side— enlarged. 



Text Cater- 

 pillar OF TUB 

 Forest. 



* Identical, as Mr. A. R. Grote first pointed out, with Aletia argillacea, Iluebn. 



